Voice
by tami3
Summary: Akito's voice sang through Agito, tuning him into a King. Then the fear of his own life silenced him, so stealing Agito's strength as well. Without either, Agito fights for Akito to mean something to him. Slight Romance. Mature elements.


_There be some heavy warnings for this one. But as they contain spoilers, skip them if you feel you can._

_Warnings: Violence, implied one-sided Agito/Akito, homosexuality, explicit language, implied nonconsensual underage sexual activity, incestuous undertones…uh, what else…_

Voice

Akito is the little, undulating ripple humming across his lower abdomen. The inhuman elasticity in his ligaments when his knee aligns with his bony hip and then snaps into a paper-frail sternum.

"Little bitch, think you're the fucking Thorn Queen or something!? Huh, pretty boy cocksucker?!"

Their latest prey personally know AT royalty. He, and they, they are the "elite" of their world.

It escapes Agito that he should care.

Agito reverses and his lower body tears out as a wall of volley fire. He spackles the walls with a fine red mince.

"Fuck yeah! Can your Thorn whore do that, bitch!? She ever chew you up this good?!"

Agito keeps an eye on the creeping damp of mutilated flesh on his bare calves, glossing his legs like fresh paint. It advances upwards, wetting his thighs. It's never gotten that far before. He loves it.

He loves the little swoop where the base of the skull meets the neck, that vulnerable vital point that peeks out--just a little-- from beneath a helmet's protective hull. It's a small hollow of dark skin, sprinkled with fine hair. Hard to get at. The curve of headgear deflects the blades on his feet like a sword gets checked by a shield. He goes for it every time.

Softly, he hears:

_"Go."_

Need rages from toes on up. The regalia sting, then fly.

_Another one, another three, another ten. _He smashes his serrated heel into that pleasure spot: vertebrae resist, then nonchalantly pop out of place. His ankles are already so drenched that all he can feel is the pressure of the liquid squirting against him.

_"Go."_

Agito sees it, he's made to see it; the regalia need to go to it.

He's singing him song of the ominous tremors in the water:

He is the emperor of the sea, of all. His legs, they harpoon those of the land and sky. Like a riptide, he severs them from their world, their struggling bodies sodden, dragging them into a whirlpool that plunges to the crushing depths.

He doesn't tease like the Thorn Queen, who whittles away at the body with her nettle pricks and stinger strikes; he savages and slaughters, he decimates enemies into crimson clouds blooming in the waves.

_"Go."_

Akito's permission is whisper soft, pale and warm like a shot of golden electricity coursing through his veins.

His true heart lies below his waist, it drips molten power. His senses overflow with him, Akito, and Akito, he steeps in the black pool of his consciousness like a kelpie languishing in a spring, strumming to life a will and a soul.

_Something changes_--Akito's work--and the threads of Agito's core untangle and smooth at Akito's coaxing tug. Everything below Agito's waist slackens. Then each muscle begins to wind, tight, tensing. The monster lopes up his bones, the edge of its teeth scraping against his muscle, the searing agony that will burst from him as a leviathan seeking to engulf the world in its merciless maw.

The Regalia's summons swells and roars.

_The Fang._

"GO!!"

Akito twists gasping on his side.

"Nooooo!" he screams, sobbing. Tears pour. "Nooo…!"

Discord, like a pile of cymbals collapsing into a heap. Agito crashes in distraction.

The music, harmonious, that came from the strings he wound around Akito when Akito was just a phantom afloat in the pitch of Agito's soul. Akito'd unwove them and arranged them, composed them and played them.

Akito, with his graceful mastery of the Regalia's surging pulse. He could tame it to a murmur or flood it to a tidal wave, conducting it to his cadence. He'd sang his song through Agito; it had swept from the inside out, beginning in his chest and flowing through him, currents twining through his very tissues. Chiming powerfully.

There is a buzzing silence in that space now. Agito strains to listen to it, but there is too much ugly commotion coming from the outside. Barren, cold, full.

Keening that comes from an unrefined reality.

Vocal cords ripping themselves apart to scream.

Agito waits, but he can't hear anything coming from the inside anymore.

He hears this from Akito's human throat: raw, shredded, wild. How Akito screams is not like how he sings.

Agito hears this.

"ONII-SAN!"

Agito finally understands how others feel when he attacks them.

He is seized by a current, grabbed and thrust into a room so tight it pinches. He's never had the sky, but Akito has always promised him the open sea. A plain of water. There, the treble of Akito's unseen sonar had tingled reassuringly against his skin.

It is.

Still.

He is.

Dead in the water.

He knows they will never fight together again. He knows this is because of a man whose hands now grip Akito's voice.

His reign as king is overthrown. His crown, his strength. It was taken from him and broken into pieces.

It was.

Melted down and recast as shackles.

His.

Akito.

Silence.

--

Akito is completely sure that Agito qualifies as another person He is not like a subsidiary Akito, because when they talk, they have to go somewhere.

Akito can't remember who, but someone once told him he'd meet a girl he'd like and he would want to be completely irrational about her. Such as, he'd want more than nothing else to take her to a quiet place and exchange secrets for hours. He wouldn't always find the prospect so absurdly boring. So went the prediction, anyways, so he'd better find a place and keep it safe in his heart for that day.

Akito's never changed his mind for a girl, is not even sure he knows any girls, but he takes Agito to his favorite places for scenes like that. He's felt the pang to do something similar with Kaito, but is smart enough to fight against it. Akira, whose face looks tender and pained for him sometimes, has made Akito mouth words before he even really has them--he so wants so very, very badly to exchange something worth another person's feelings. If only he could craft them right just for Akira, Akito would give secrets to Akira like treasures to cherish.

Of course, it really doesn't work that way. Agito had spelled it out for him in his affectionate-like-swallowing-poison way. Akito just likes boys. All it takes is one male showing some concern and you'll wish you could hand over your entire soul, Akito. Agito had told him off about it the night they crashed on a steel girder, but Akito had said, that doesn't matter right now.

It really didn't. All the same, Agito was quick to add: "Don't you dare fucking consider this a date!"

Agito doesn't get sentimental about settings, so it's always Akito's choice. When they go out and talk, usually it's some place like the graveyard stillness of a construction site at the top of the highest crane. Maybe the deserted rooftop of a skyscraper. Someplace high and beautiful and frightening, in a brute-strength-contained-by-grace kind of way.

Agito snipes at Akito every time, "Will you quit being such a fucking faggot? Not everything has to be so goddamned poetic!" When Akito withholds the anticipated proverb answer, eventually Agito sulkily provides his own: "Fuck your projections, fuck your symbolism, and fuck you, Akito! This place is nothing like me!" Knowing he makes Akito smile drives him crazy. They can't really see each other, but Agito knows what Akito looks like when he smiles. When the image pops into his half-share of consciousness, everything goes out the window.

They sit there as if they rendezvoused, passing the eye patch back and forth like the liquor bottle they might have had if they had gone to high school.

"It's not OK." Pass.

"I guess." Pass.

"Fuck! If you agree with me, you're supposed to want to do something too!" Pass.

"Mm. I don't care." Pass.

"Stop shitting me, Akito! You care! You really fucking care!"

One hand catches the other mid-way. Tense, Agito tries to wait out Akito challenging him to complete his thought.

"You're scared." Agito finally hisses. Pass.

"Yes. I know. I meant, I don't care about hearing the words, 'supposed to.' Did you know, you're not supposed to exist? Did you know that 'supposed to' doesn't change a thing?" Pass.

"You've got to be shitting me…" Agito doesn't want to emulate Akito, the gay sissy, but when he keeps his eye closed as he replies, he can't help but feel that there's a deeper meaning to it. Denial, unless he missed his guess. Pass…

"Agito, help me…please…always, help me…" Akito whispers.

'I don't want to do something. You do something.' Is that what you're saying? That's why we're like this. That's why I'm here. You let things get like this. You're a fucking coward, Akito. You're a weak, fucking, pitiful coward…Why do I have to… Why am I still…?

Agito doesn't let Akito pass the eye patch so he doesn't have to put voice to those words. He's too busy choking on his own hypocrisy. It's not like he'd hadn't, once, relied on Akito to be strong.

By the time they walk back in, it's two in the morning. Obviously they should have waited until at least four to get completely in the clear, because Kaito is not passed out in his bunk, reeking of sake. He's sitting up for them in the dark, his gaze glassy and bright in the darkness. A reptilian sheen to Agito's shark's. He has those modified AT's strapped on, legs stretched out into the orange panel of city light pollution spewing in from their window.

Akito stares and feels a little sad; Kaito is a police officer, not a storm rider. He will never be able to wear AT's that are chunky, vicious, ripped. Law enforcers have to be discreet about their concealed weapons, especially if they're using the taboo weapons of their too-dangerous-for-society enemies. Regalia, glorious, outrageous, obvious, can't even be a fantasy.

Kaito can only ride on those secret thin metal strips lashed meanly around his appendages. They look sharp, like they could slip like razor edged whips and hew out a chunk of his flesh at any moment. They are more like ankle braces than wings, tying Kaito to the earth and trying to bury him in it. Poor Kaito, he isn't any better off than that girlfriend of Akira's…whatever her name is…the fragile cripple who looked as if she had a bird's skeleton. She'd crumple in from too strong a wind.

Agito is alert and already angry.

"If seeing the bastard in training wheels makes you sad, I'll rip your eye out of its goddamned socket, Akito." he threatens. "Why are you always like this? You're not supposed to feel bad for him. That's not how it is. If you're only going to see things the wrong way, you don't need eyes. Or deserve them. I should just blind you. Fag. Cunt."

"Yes. I know."

"Akito, come here." Kaito slurs, beckoning with two fingers. Akito obeys and Kaito pulls him into his lap as if Akito were a toddler. Akito doesn't say anything to Kaito slathering his large palm up and down and across his face, even though it catches on the natural contours of his faces, sending a distorted sensation across. Kaito's skin feels thick and warm and clings like vinyl, plucking at Akito's cheeks.

"Saaa…you're really growing up, aren't you? Say Akito, you're…you're…such a great k-kid. Come on, tell your nii-san what you've been doing lately…Something amazing with AT's, I guess…heh heh…"

Akito smiles reluctantly and returns: "Well…nothing's been really different. Just the same old routine…I train, work …but oh, you know about that…"

"So…how is he?"

"I." Akito returns blankly. Agito growls mentally at him, which is his way of shrugging in irritation and turning a cold shoulder. " Uhm. A little unhappy, I guess. I still can't…tune like I used to. He can't…ride the way he did before, and that…makes him unhappy…"

"I guess his feelings are the same as mine, then." For a drunk, Kaito can be viciously lucid. "Why aren't you getting any better, Akito?"

"But…I can't concentrate…because of what happened…because…" he trails off as Kaito casually strokes his cheek.

"…of what I did? You're the one who didn't trust me, Akito."

Akito takes his back off his older brother's arms. He can't bow his head or else he would be nuzzling Kaito's hand. Kaito forces him to be bold, to stare straight back with his open eye. "I know…"

"Poor Agito…he's so weak now…little prick's good enough to pick a fight with back alley trash with the rest of the G-men, but now that you can't tune him, is he even a real 'King' anymore?" Kaito takes the asymmetrically long blue bangs between a thumb and a forefinger, tugging. "And you, you're even more pitiful. Agito may suck balls compared to his former self, but at least he tries. You won't even help him." Kaito grasps one of Akito's thin wrists, wrapping all the way around it.

"Do you want me to help you?" Kaito exhales into Akito's ear.

Akito can feel Agito drifting off vaguely in the recesses of his mind, detaching himself from the situation. What is he doing?

Agito is looking out the window, hypnotized by the power lines. The energy that runs through them is what lights the city, makes it alive; if the system were shut down, people would leave and Tokyo would cease to be anything real. There would still be tall buildings. Impressive infrastructure. It certainly would look like it was still something.

As he absentmindedly thinks, Akito's shirt comes off.

Agito tries. He strains. The power of the Regalia charge through the jagged wheels, potent as a nuclear reactor, demanding refinement.

Still. There.

Enormous. Debilitating.

All his fighting comes in sharp, agonizing bursts, shattering against his body as his ATs mercilessly punish him for his incompetence; all the raw strength is there, but there is no control. It is, instead of taking aim, spraying a round of gunfire blindly and vindictively, believing that something will hit. Something usually does. But that is not the way of a King. That's the way of a maniac. In pain.

Agito. Is.

Akito's a fucking mute.

It is.

Utter silence.

There is only a black, soft, unnerving hiss of nothing that nips at Agito's stability when he is riding on his soles at breakneck speed. It tells him that there is nothing under his feet. There is no safety.

There is.

No flow.

There is.

No score to follow.

He feels like he is constantly on the verge of derailing because.

There. Is. Only. Darkness.

The. Black. Quiet.

Holding him up.

Bogging. Him. Down.

To throw off that void, that threat, all he can do is flail wildly against it, scrabbling for a sense of balance. Fuck whatever is in the way. Fuck whatever connects with his legs when he's struggling just to survive. He can't call them his defeated, or even his victims. They are only the collateral damage to his own downfall.

Fuck them. Fuck them all.

He is.

No King.

Only.

An. Animal.

Rabid. No.

Sense. Of. Self.

No. Purpose.

They.

Can.

All.

Die.

Akito was his ascent. Akito was his ruin.

Akito is naked.

Agito senses more than he sees Akito shimmying his ribs against Kaito, divining for vibrations. Agito can't feel it, but he is aware of it, that there is touch against Akito's skin.

Human friction on his torso, warm and rubbery. Fingers leaving a skipping caress down his back. Kaito from above is lightly teasing each knob of Akito's exposed spine, one by one. Agito can feel clusters of nerves clench with a static-y tension each time.

Akito's hair pools on the floor as he stretches out across the length of Kaito's leg. His thighs lock around Kaito's own to keep himself from falling and he positions himself upside and face down, hands running from Kaito's knee down as if fingering an instrument. He lays his head down. Kaito splays his fingers on the nape of Akito's neck, circling shapes on him.

Agito stares on. Help, he thinks without meaning. For Akito, maybe.

"…No…I can't hear…anything."

"I see." Kaito lazily places his hands on Akito's waist and undoes his embrace. Akito goes into a sitting position on Kaito's lap, where he pulls up his knees.

Kaito reaches around and takes one of Akito's bare feet in each hand, rubbing. He massages each toe, traces the pearly rims of each nail.

"Let's try tuning again tomorrow, then." He rolls Akito out on the floor and is gone.

Akito curls up on his side in contemplation, still nude.

"Stupid crybaby vagina. Stupid cocksucker bitch. Stupid Akito."

"I know."

Akito takes the eye patch off too so that Agito can pretend that they're both crying, together.

--

Akito found him! He's a snotty, stunted nestling of crow whose balls haven't even dropped, but when Akito locks lips with him, something shatters and for the first time in a long while, there's a stirring of an oncoming cascade of sound, whirring up excitedly.

Agito's stunned. More confused than happy. He doesn't even have the Regalia anymore, but even without them, it feels like Akito's voice could one day do what it used to; pervade every inch of his body, infuse each cell with the right to _fly. _

Agito at least knows he hates things that don't make sense, so he tentatively decides that the homicidal buzz he has whenever the loud-mouthed idiot's around (he concedes its really more Akito that's "around" him, since Akito tails him like a shadow in love) means he hates Ikki for being delusional, naïve, and for fuck's sake, stupider than a pile of bird shit.

It is coming back. Faint, but getting steadier, more confident all the time. Like a child's wail getting stronger with each push made to bring it into the world it rightfully belongs. Nothing fancy, or even beautiful like before; just a definite cry, demanding life, staking a place in existence. Agito drowns both it and the spoken words out as they sit out on the roof of the baby crow's house because that is where Akito wanted to be so there they all are.

They are not as high up anymore; the view is not as bracing or solitary. There's too many humble articles, messy and dirty and too alive, like litter and rusted dumbbells in the yard. They float above a spread of minuscule lights from the neighboring residences. They're weak, but they're little reminders that they are surrounded by people who illuminate their own lives in some small way, and are right before their eyes. The terra cotta tiles beneath them are warmer than the metal seats of steel beams that Akito liked before. They've protected the house for years, but not without cracking here and there. Regardless, they do a good job of keeping the occupants within its hold safe and dry.

Goddamn, the fucking world was conspiring to make a queer out of Akito. Agito swears a stream fatigued profanity, possibly venting about Ikki getting too much credit, but more to keep himself busy while Akito chats up his crush. He's not really hearing what they say. He doesn't need to, not after a really long night. It might be like swatting flies, but he's got to do a lot of running around just to smack them. Dealing with the so-called Sky candidate is too annoying to stand.

It's not the first time he's wanted to hack himself off from Akito or hack Akito off from him. It had started when Akito stopped being the musical ghost inside him grabbing, tuning, ushering the dangerous waves of the Regalia. Akito had left that space where he had been the phantom instrumentalist of their body, and emerged as a trembling boy. All tiny bones and soft flesh that got bruised much too easily, taking up their physical being half the time.

In a raspy, grating little voice, he had asked for help.

Then they had lost the Regalia altogether and Agito had had to slam his skull against the wall to stop the very useless and verey wrong desire to start putting holes in his own body as if he could bleed out whatever was making him sick. Whatever had made him lose to that fucking-pussy-whipped-traitor-dickwhore-bitch Akira.

Akito, maybe.

It had all gone downhill from there. Agito was no longer a King, in truth or in name. He was just himself, staving off that hollowness inside that sabotaged his feet, shredding piece-of-shit riders in frustration. Fucked. Akito, however, was along for the ride.

Akito's real, ugly human voice, reedy from the pain of his own life, had kept him company every night. They would sit together on a sterile spire and Agito would tell him how he hated everything, how he wanted to break everything to pieces, never bothering to imply that "everything" left out Akito.

Akito had said back softly, sounding ugly:

"Stop, then."

To Agito's infuriated disbelief, he'd said it again.

"So why don't you just stop already?"

Agito's insides (his, for the moment, and not Akito's) had jammed up. He didn't say anything back to Akito for the rest of the night.

He won't stop, because he wants to feel it again. The piercing, aching clarity of Akito's voice moving through him, the elating ecstasy of Akito's skill driving the Regalia past obstinate bone. He wants to ride with Akito again.

He doesn't even know what this new voice is, which is simple and runs through him sharp and clean. It asserts itself when Agito is trying to ride the way he always has since that horrible day Akito shut down. It seizes Agito, muzzling his violent, unchecked fighting, straining it to clean, hard blows that end things quickly.

It's not as rich and vibrant and complex and strong like before.

But it is.

And.

It is.

Akito.

Ikki beside them gobbles his instant noodles, his consolation dinner after Mikan looted his plate (and Akito's too, to stop him from giving his share to Ikki.) They talk about some trivial things, with Akito dripping syrup about how happy he is.

Agito doesn't take in a single word, putting a mental block on. He's not letting anything get through.

"Please. Save Agito."

From the inside, Agito picks up on somethingstrange from Akito's inner song. Something he's definitely never felt before, not from the days of Akito's overwhelming strength and not from the senseless, linear voice he has now. It flutters soothingly like a lullaby. Even though Agito doesn't even have possession of the body right now, he swears he can feel it, enveloping his skin in a dreamy, urgent murmur.

_"Go."_

--

Author's Note:

Yeah, a bit of a different theory on how Akito/Agito fight. From the beginning, Agito's like the uber mecha and Akito the uber pilot. Uber mecha that relies on synchronization fails when pilot loses his spirit. Like the Evas. Or Gurren Lagann. Y'know. Only with like, pretty metaphors ala Oh!Great's music allegory…especially with the whole rider/tuner/noise thing that Kururu, Kanon, and Akito helpfully expositioned out….

Confused much? Uh…Akito gets some kind of voice/tuning ability back. The need to protect people he cares about is the incentive (Reference point! Behemoth fight, latest chaps). Course, Agito's issue is that it's for Ikki…but hey, Akito does it for him too. Agito'll have work through that himself.

And everything can be read as sexual. Or not sexual. Or you can not believe a single word of this. Take your pick.

…I am so burnt out. This was so my excuse not to study.

3-15-08 Some small changes to swears and format. :-)


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